In the ancient world, even when food shortages or famine were vaguely blamed on “the gods,” they often resulted in assassinations, coups, riots, revolution, or war. Chinese history is also instructive, with good times said to represent the “mandate of heaven” for an emperor, and bad times and hunger said to show the loss of divine sanction and to provide a basis for rebellion. And the connection between cold weather harvest failures and the French Revolution is well-established in modern history.